The Holocaust is a globally recognized historical tragedy; next school year, Camas High School (CHS) history teacher Jeanne Jarvis plans to go deeper by offering a class to juniors and seniors that will cover studying the Holocaust, other genocides and the principles of a genocide; Holocaust and Genocide Studies (HGS).

The course will only be offered as a semester-long class. Jarvis has outlined the timeline of the class, structuring it so that half the semester will be dedicated to studying the Holocaust and the other half will be used to study other genocides.

To prepare to teach the class, Jarvis has planned to go on a study tour in Poland and Vienna, Austria. Jarvis has planned to visit various concentration camp sites and museums to study their significance and relay the information to the new class. Jarvis explained that the class aims not only to teach but to preserve historical events.

“My main goal is to preserve the memory of the victims of the genocides so the history doesn’t get lost,” Jarvis said.

Groups of students at CHS like the Human Rights Club (HRC) look to recognize and dive into issues similar to topics such as those proposed for material in HGS and help bring awareness to various types of discrimination. HRC gives presentations every Monday to educate people in the club on different world issues.

“I think it’s a really good addition to CHS,” CHS senior and HRC president Sophia Bogachuk said. “It [will help] bring awareness to peoples’ cultures and history of a lot of different regions and people.”

“It’s going to inform a lot of people about things that happened,” CHS senior and HRC vice president Zoe Anderson said.

Jarvis plans to also integrate resources and guest speakers from the Oregon Jewish Museum and the Seattle Holocaust Center for Humanity. She hopes that this will provide students with a unique hands-on learning experience and allow them to learn from a variety of professionals.

“It is very important to talk about those things in order to prevent them from happening again,” Anderson said. 

HGC aims to not only study the Holocaust but also provide coverage of lesser-known historical tragedies.

“I feel like we don’t talk about it a lot,” Bogachuk said. “There are so many groups that are just forgotten and their histories are forgotten. I think this needs to be brought up.”